Spambots target tweeting pollies

Craig Butt, Thomas Hounslow

The Twitter accounts of prominent politicians are being targeted by ''spambots'', dramatically inflating the number of followers for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.

Two social media analysis platforms tested by Fairfax Media independently found that about 40 per cent of the most recent 50,000 Twitter followers of Australia's four most popular politicians were fake.

The figures suggest that the size of a politician's Twitter following may not be as representative of the reach of their influence as is sometimes suggested.

Together, they make up more than two-thirds of the total followers for all federal politicians on Twitter, and have the highest proportion of recent fake followers.

Much has been made of Mr Rudd's Twitter presence - which almost eclipses all other federal politicians combined - and how he uses Twitter to connect with voters. The analysis suggests 39 per cent of his most recent followers may be fake.

So-called ''spambot'' accounts, which follow prominent Twitter users to gain access to their audience and in some cases increase their own following to promote products, are believed to contribute heavily to the number of fake accounts.

Of the 153 public Twitter accounts belonging to federal politicians, Mr Abbott had the highest proportion of fake recent followers, with 41 per cent of the past 50,000 to follow his account found not to be real people. Ms Gillard and Mr Turnbull both had 40 per cent fake followers.

The proportion of fake followers fell for other popular Twitter users, with 27 per cent of shadow treasurer Joe Hockey's 68,000 following believed to be fake, 21 per cent of Treasurer Wayne Swan's 38,000, and 17 per cent of Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr's 32,000.

The numbers were calculated by social media analysis tool StatusPeople and corroborated by Socialbakers, a similar service.

According to StatusPeople, on average 12 per cent of politicians' followers are fake, 25 per cent are inactive and 63 per cent active.

The results do not suggest that politicians are deliberately collecting fake followers.

While it is possible to buy fake followers to give an inflated impression of popularity, online government and social media advocate Craig Thomler said he was confident politicians were not engaging in the practice. ''There isn't a perceived higher popularity if you have more followers as a politician,'' he said.

He said Twitter users would expect that some of a politician's followers were fake: ''People don't pay attention to how many followers a politician has - they are interested in what they are saying.''